Letters to the Editor

• @AKA Smith

  AKA Smith: "1. I don't believe Hillary Clinton meant her remarks about MLK, JFK, and LBJ to be racist. I don't think people should be punished for saying something that reflects historical realisty."

  Most people acknowledge she didn't mean those remarks to be racist. But they were misinterpretable enough to be tactless. They were also part of a very tense series of exchanges between herself and Obama, when she was criticizing Obama for offering people "false hope," etc. You might have forgotten, but part of what set off people's ire was Francine Torge's introduction of Clinton (which Clinton didn't respond negatively to): "Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually [passed the civil rights legislation]." You can't deny that that's pretty crappy.

  AKA Smith: "2. The Obama campaign's race baiting began there."

  Please show some evidence that the Obama campaign was behind any of the immediate negative reaction to Clinton's comments. I recall that Obama himself did not say he thought Clinton was being racist, but only that her comments were "ill-advised."

  AKA Smith: "4. The Obama campaign memo emerged about how they intended to use charges of racism against the Clintons."

  We've been over this. Here's the scoop: The memo was from a low-level staffer in the South Carolina campaign office in response to a request from a single journalist for examples of racism against Obama. It did not come from the central campaign, which disavowed the memo as soon as it became known to them.

  Here's what David Axelrod said: "This is a compendium of quotes from newspapers that was provided on request from a low-level staffer in South Carolina who probably thought she was being responsive to an inquiry."

  You can disbelieve this, but I think the sloppy nature of the memo speaks for itself when compared to the professionalism of the main Obama campaign. Here is more information:

  • initial report on the Huffington Post:

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/12/obama-camps-memo-on-clin_n_81205.html

  • Washinton Post's 'The Trail': Obama disavows memo:

  http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/15/about_that_sc_memo.html

  (Obama: "It is my responsibility to make sure that we're setting a clear tone in our campaign, and I take that responsibility very seriously, which is why I spoke yesterday and sent a message in case people were not clear that what we want to do is make sure that we focus on the issues.")

  • Politico's coverage of the memo:

  http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/The_Obama_race_memo.html

  In response to the memo, "[Obama] made it very clear to the managers of the campaign that he was unhappy, and to make sure everyone understood, and that it wasn’t good enough ... that it came at a very low level in the campaign. The word had to spread from top to bottom.”

  Obama also said he would fire anybody who made personal attacks against Clinton. Then Samantha Power called Clinton a "monster," and guess what? Obama fired her.

  AKA Smith: "5. I have never seen a more vicious online campaign or more viscious campaign of foul, sexist, racist, and sheer innuendo digging up old Republican talking points than was deployed against the Clintons in comment threads here, at Huffington, The Politico, and TPM, but those comments were really at the encouragement of the blogs themselves and the MSM. It is Obama's "fans" who are the herd."

  You're exaggerating mightily. Most of the web sites you've listed above have stayed respectable, from what I've seen, and they haven't shied from reporting on things that cast Obama in an unfavorable light. The commenters are another story, of course, and I don't frequent those sites often enough to know what to say about them. I think Salon's comments section has shown a full spectrum of styles and approaches on both sides, as has the media. Nobody will deny that the MSM has been sexist toward Clinton at times, but then again, there are examples of racism too.

  AKA Smith: "6. Given how the Clintons have been treated, I don't think much of anything that they do to defeat Obama is beyond the pale. (There is no such phrase as beyond the pail.)"

  Really? So the very principles you claim Obama's group have violated no longer matter to you?

  AKA Smith: "7. I don't think we should choose a president based upon either gender or color, whether that gender be male or female, whether that color be black, white, or brown."

  I agree. But I have seen other Clinton supporters suggest that women should vote for Hillary simply because of her gender, and that women who didn't vote for Hillary were betraying women. Just for the record.

  AKA Smith: "8. Obama will likely be the Democratic nominee largely because he is black. That is no more acceptable than selecting the nominee because he is white. Both outcomes are racist."

  Hello, Geraldine! I dunno, plenty of white people voted for Obama. How did he win in Iowa? How did he win or at least get a high turnout in other states with relatively low percentages of blacks? It couldn't have anything to do with people liking things about him other than his skin, could it?

  AKA Smith: "9. I don't want to be a participant in that sort of injustice."

  Then don't participate. Stay home. You're entitled to. Maybe you can take up macrame.

  -- Xrandadu Hutman
  [Read Xrandadu Hutman's other letters]
  Permalink Friday, May 9, 2008 03:29 AM